


you got to have a heart of steel

by loyaulte_me_lie



Series: return of the queen [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Genderbending, Meeting, and further shenanigans probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 05:39:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17954603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: Legolas and Aragorn meet each other, oh...half a century before Bilbo Baggins goes to Rivendell. Adventures and shenanigans ensue.





	you got to have a heart of steel

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Don't Give Up" by the Noisettes.

**i.**

She’s in Arnor, and she’s fighting. That’s the long and short of it. The orcs had been setting traps for unwary travellers in the woods at the base of the Weather Hills; she’d heard rumours of it last she was in Bree, and decided to go ahead of the merchant caravan, see if she could lure them off. It’s happened _too_ well, really, and there are more than she’d bargained for, scaly, lumpy faces and rattling hissing breath and the swing of their swords and axes. Unluckily for them, she’s quicker. It’s a dance, really, when you think about it, the swing of the sword, the ducking and diving, the beat of heavy boots on packed earth, the trees whispering over their heads. One of the orcs shrieks as she drives her sword into his neck. He falls, and she spins, avoiding the splatter of blood, impacts with another. It’s a large raiding party, she thinks, larger than she’d expected; might have to be clever about this rather than just brute force. She may be Aragorn, Strider, elf-raised and trained, but even that is no match for over fifteen heavy, hungry orcs. Gods, she hopes the merchant caravan has made its way past.

Just as her brain works to come up with an exit strategy, a green and gold tipped arrow whistles past the side of her face, smashing straight into an orc’s forehead. Huh. She keeps fighting, and arrows keep raining down from somewhere behind her and up – they skim close to the edge of her cloak and her shoulder but always, unerringly, find their mark. An elf if anyone, she reckons, and as the last orc falls she spins around to the forest behind her. No-one there. One of the trees’ leaves is rustling, suspiciously.

“Hello?” she calls.

There’s a moment of silence, like the forest is holding its breath, and then someone drops from the tree and lands gracefully on the balls of his feet. Definitely an elf, she thinks, taking in the perfect blonde hair, the glow of his pale skin, his sharp pointed ears. He regards her for a time, and she leans on her sword, waits. It gets awkward. Then he says:

“You leave your left guard open.”

Incredulity spikes through her, and she glares. She thought she’d left this behind in Rivendell. “You what?”

He shrugs. If she weren’t _entirely_ used to elves, she’d be absolutely unnerved by it, by the way the light reflects off his face, the way his features come together in knife-sharp harmony, the way he stands as though he could dash off, fleet-footed, at any moment. “You leave your left guard open,” he repeats, as though she’s a small child. She rolls her eyes.

“Only an elf would be able to tell that.”

He keeps staring at her, his dark eyebrows drawing together ever so slightly. Again, if she weren’t used to them, she’d think he was entirely inscrutable. When it becomes apparent he’s not going to say _anything_ of use, she turns and starts pulling his arrows out of orc carcasses for him, wiping them on the grass. He joins her, moving silently through the other end of the clearing, and they meet in the middle. She hands him the arrows, and he stashes them back in his quiver. They stand and look at each other for a moment.

“Thank you for saving my life,” she says, grudgingly, and he inclines his head.

“You are an accomplished swordswoman,” he returns, “though perhaps unused to sparring with someone who could actually give you a challenge.”

“Is that an offer?”

“I am hunting orcs.”

“So am I.”

“It seems our paths have converged in a most fortuitous manner,” he says. “Legolas.”

“Aragorn,” she replies. Then, in Elvish: “May the stars shine upon our meeting.”

He blinks, surprised. “And long may their light last.”

Aragorn looks around at the bodies strewn over the clearing, sighs, and murmurs half of a prayer under her breath. They’re murderers and torturers and close to beasts, but they’re still sentient beings, still deserve a moment of respect at their passing. Legolas doesn’t comment, puts his bow back over his shoulder.

“There is another pack of orcs hunting a day’s run from here,” he says.

“Which way?” Aragorn asks. He turns and begins to run. Neither of them know it, but it’s the start of long years running around after each other. Later, when she’s old and greying, and he’s still luminescent and unchanging, they’ll sit together and talk about this moment, about this chance meeting in the woods that changed the course of history. It’s often the normal moments that have the most power; no-one knows what their consequences will be until it’s much _much_ too late.

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally watched Lord of the Rings at the ripe old age of 21. My dear friend Marie and I began headcanoning, and started trying to make LOTR more diverse, hence this series, which will be updated sporadically due to a) a massive Les Mis fic I'm trying to write and b) an undergraduate dissertation that also needs writing. It's inspired by a lot of tea and random shitposting on Tumblr, and may I say is *very* movie inspired. I haven't read the books, I am going to when I have time, but bear with for the moment :D
> 
> There is a pinterest board if you want to see how I see the characters. Female!Aragorn is, Marie and I decided, a bit like Aishwarya Rai in The Last Legion (2007) but with much shorter hair. 
> 
> https://pin.it/eq4hluev5lfp76


End file.
